Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Three-dimensional (3D) displays/projections have become a topic of much interest in recent years. Many 3D displays require the cumbersome use of a headset (e.g., active or passive 3D glasses) by the viewer. Further, while glasses-less 3D display systems do exist, such systems may not allow for multiple viewers at different azimuthal viewing angles, elevations, and distances from the display.
A light field is a function (sometimes referred to as the “5D plenoptic function”) that describes the composite of the amount of light flowing in a given direction at a given location for every location in space. If all the light that comprises a light field is emanating from one plane, for example, the function can be reduced to four dimensions. An example basis set of those four dimensions may be an x-location on the plane, a y-location on the plane, an azimuthal angle (from 0°-360°) in the plane (sometimes called φ), and an elevation angle (from 0°-90°, 0° being in the plane, 90° being exactly normal to the plane) out of the plane (sometimes called θ). If an intensity, in Watts for example, is specified for each possible quadruple (x, y, φ, and θ) at the plane (assuming the plane to be infinite in x and y directions), then a light field can be defined for every point in 3D space (barring interference with objects outside of the plane).
A light field display can generate such a light field, subject to practical limitations (e.g., the display plane is not infinite in x and y directions). The more granular the selection of values for each of the four dimensions, the higher the resolution of the viewable light field that is displayed. Additionally, the intensity of the light field displayed may only be defined for a single wavelength. Therefore, a number of light fields may be separately displayed at different wavelengths. In the visible spectrum, each wavelength represents the color of the respective light field, thereby enabling color light field displays.
A viewer may view the light field generated by a light field display from various locations in space and from various azimuthal and elevation angles. Given that a viewer has two eyes (and therefore two perspectives) from which to observe the light field, a viewer can spectroscopically observe the scene coming from the light field display in 3D.